No shortage of opportunities.

Firms across nation scout for engineers among college grads.

Northern College, based in Porcupine, is just one post-secondary institution witnessing distressing gaps between supply and demand of qualified engineering technicians and technologists.

Jo-Anne Boucher-Miron, Northern Colleges co-ordinator of the school of engineering, says she is seeing at ground level an unmet demand for graduates who, in a changing labour market, appear to have a choice of jobs in their fields.

For example, the provincial Transportation Ministry, which had gutted its workforce in the mid-1990s to cut costs, recently advertised openings for 40 technical positions, and industry is also trying to attract workers.

Boucher-Miron says Northern College, which serves northeastern Ontario, is no different from other colleges in feeling the draw of students from programs with traditionally high enrolment to other programs centred on high-tech and information technology.

She says the college is getting calls from employers as far as Alberta and the Northwest Territories who know that Northern College produces graduates in common disciplines.

She says there are many opportunities for graduates in programs including:

* Civil engineering technology with survey option

* Construction building management

* Electrical and electronics engineering technology

* Architecture technology, and

* Instrumentation.

However, students do not appear to understand the range of career choices.

"I don't think the message is getting across sufficiently," she says.

The college is considering a placement strategy to provide better real-life experience and is exploring the possibility of an accelerated program that would crop a year's commitment from a three-year program. Those who do graduate can expect a range of starting salaries depending on a number of factors. However, recently a graduate of the college's civil technology program was hired as a manager of a municipal public works with a starting salary of $42,000.

"Colleges can only do so much advertising of their programs. We need to educate parents, the government and industry," Boucher-Miron says. "I think industry has to help to promote programs and promote industries at high schools.

We need to collaborate and we need more involvement (from industry)," she adds.

Jim Chalmers, the college's placement officer, echoes Boucher-Miron's assertion that the market favours college engineering graduates. He has fielded many calls with job requests from mostly southern Ontario employers where the job markets are more active. However, he does say there are jobs in northeastern Ontario.

"Employers are calling, writing and sending us recruitment materials and job postings virtually on a daily basis for graduates in technology," Chalmers says.

He expects the shortage of qualified technicians and technologists to mirror that of engineers in similar disciplines for the next few years. Job vacancies for qualified technicians and technologists in electrical, civil, surveying, instrumentation and welding are begging to be filled, and the gap is expected to only widen before the situation improves.

"We're going to find ifs going to be a common thing, especially with that Freedom 55 thing," he says of the anticipated increase in the number of workers expected to retire within that demographic cohort.

The college is looking to increase enrolment and aggressively promote its programs, Chalmers says, adding that "major companies are saying they have to do something (too)."

Students, meanwhile, may not fully appreciate how much sway they hold in the marketplace for the next few years if trends continue.

"Students are involved in studying and they're not looking at what's happening out there," Chalmers says.

With a 100 per cent placement in some programs including civil engineering technology, perhaps students have only to focus on their grades.